By Gulbin Sultana, PhD

Sri Lanka is heading towards political instability amidst the economic crisis with the resignation of entire cabinet ministers except for the Prime Minister on 3 April 2022. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed a new four-member Cabinet including the minister of external affairs, finance, education and highways on 4 April to proceed with the Parliamentary session on 5 April and continue the functioning of the country until an all-party interim government is formed. However, the newly appointed finance minister too resigned within 24 hours of his appointment along with the finance secretary.

The decision to appoint an all-party interim government was taken as per the previous demand of 11 political parties. However, several political parties have now decided not to be part of the all-party caretaker government as public demand for the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his government is mounting. With the withdrawal of support to the Gotabaya government by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the decisions of several other government MPs to sit independent, the incumbent government has lost the two-thirds majority in the Parliament. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has, nonetheless, refused to step down and expressed his willingness to hand over the government to anyone who holds a simple majority or 113 seats on the floor of the Parliament. While the effort of the political parties will be to prove their numbers on the floor of the parliament to form the government, the apolitical protestors from different strata of society who came on the street defying curfew on 3 April to protest against the Gotabaya regime are determined to continue their protest until President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigns and Executive Presidency is abolished. It is widely believed in Sri Lanka today that the mere appointment of an interim government will not bring any respite until and unless there is respect for justice and accountability.

Problems erupted in the Sri Lankan economy since the 2019 Easter Sunday attack. The Covid pandemic has further deteriorated the economic situation as the main sources of revenue and foreign exchange earner-tourism, remittances, and export got severely affected. Nonetheless, the food, fuel, medicine, and power shortages the country is facing today are entirely due to the mismanagement and mishandling of the economy and governance by the Rajapaksa administration. Wrong policy decisions amidst the pandemic and foreign reserves crisis such as the ban on imports including the ban on chemical fertiliser, non-rescheduling the debt repayment even when the foreign reserves were not enough for two months of imports resulted in shortages of food and other essential items in the country. Despite the repeated call from several political parties, experts, and civil society members, the government failed to come out with any long-term effective policy measures to deal with the crisis. Instead focuses only on short-term ad-hoc policy measures to deal with the immediate problems.

Moreover, the criticism of the government policies even by the coalition partners and government and cabinet members was immediately suppressed. When common people without led by any political parties came out spontaneously on their own in large numbers on the street to protest and express their angst against the government’s inefficiency to govern the country, President declared an emergency and imposed a curfew to suppress the public protests. To justify the declaration of public emergency, President’s office stated the involvement of “extremists” in the public protest citing violence during the protest outside President’s residence in Mirihana.

The government’s heavy-handedness to suppress the public protest, calling the protestors extremists and declaring an emergency to control public protests have intensified the people’s protests against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his administration. Despite the emergency rule, people in large numbers are coming out to join the massive nationwide protests without any political support or affiliation.

Protestors without political affiliation consider the appointment of an interim government as a political deal among the parties and just as an interim solution to the current political crisis, not as a solution to the economic crisis. Their demand, therefore, is nothing less than the resignation of the President and his government and the abolition of the Executive Presidency. Citing the popular demands, the main opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) refused to join the interim government and asked the other parties too to “not make deals with MPs to gather 113 seats”. SJB called for a proposal in the Parliament to abolish the Executive Presidency within a week.” Several other political parties and coalitions including Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP), Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), and Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA) have also refused to join the interim government.

There has been a repeated call for the abolition of the Executive Presidency in Sri Lanka since 2014. One of the issues among the coalition partners of the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration before the 2015 Presidential elections was the abolition of the Executive Presidency. Several coalition partners withdrew their support to the government at that time as there was no positive response from then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa on the issue of abolition of the Executive Presidency. The National Unity Government that was formed in 2015, despite the commitment could not abolish the Executive Presidency, however, brought the 19th amendment to reduce some of the powers of the president. After assuming the presidency in 2019, the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration repelled the 19th amendment and brought the 20th amendment to consolidate the power of the Executive Presidency. In this background, it is quite unlikely that even if an all-party interim government is formed under the Presidency of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the Executive Presidency will be abolished easily. There is also a remote possibility that Gotabaya Rajapaksa would gracefully step down respecting people’s demands.

Public protests, therefore, are likely to intensify in the coming days. Prolonged political instability would further worsen the economy of Sri Lanka. Protest against the Rajapaksa regime is not limited to the country. Sri Lankan expats living in countries like Australia, New Zealand, the UK, France, the USA, Finland, Canada, Italy, and Germany too staged a protest demanding the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his government. Reportedly, a section of Sri Lankan expats has decided not to remit dollars to Sri Lanka until a corrupt-free government is established. Political unrest in the country for a longer period would also impact the tourism sector which has just begun to take off gradually.

The economic crisis in Sri Lanka has caused political instability and tension which in turn has pushed the country towards more economic uncertainty creating a vicious circle of political economy. The situation in Sri Lanka is volatile at this point in time and changing fast. It is to be seen what steps would be taken by the Sri Lankan political class and masses to break the vicious circle of political economy in order to bring stability in the country.

(The author is Associate Fellow, at Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. The views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of Financial Express Online. Reproducing this content without permission is prohibited).